AustLit

'The beloved novel of migration, growing up, and Sydney – now a play!

'Three generations of women. The Italian-Australian experience. A tale of Sydney. A much-loved modern classic novel, a ground-breaking film, and now at Belvoir, a simply great night out.

'It’s the last year of school, and 17-year- old Josephine Alibrandi can’t wait for her future to begin. If only she can get past the world of her Nonna, holding on to the values of the old country; and the world of her Mum, full of care and secrets. It’s time to take her place in the real world, beyond her family, beyond being an Alibrandi.

'But this is the year Josie gets to know her father. This is the year she falls in love. And this is the year she uncovers the truth – and finds the Alibrandi she has been searching for.'

Source: Belvoir St Theatre.

'The life-changing memoir, now a breathtaking Belvoir play.

'Since its publication thirty years ago, Anne Deveson’s family memoir Tell Me I’m Here has become a classic. And now, in a superb adaptation, it comes to the Belvoir stage.

'Anne’s life – the familiar juggle of marriage, career, emotions, chaos – is thrown off-balance when her son Jonathan begins speaking oddly, standing strangely, flashing into irrationality and rage. Is it just a phase, part of growing up? The years pass, and it’s clear, Anne’s son has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. But putting a name to it is one thing – getting attention, getting help is another. Even the strongest families, the most steadfast parents, buckle under such stress.

'Heart-rending, exquisitely touching, a play which speaks things which normally aren’t spoken. A play about getting on with life, before it’s too late.'

Source: Belvoir St Theatre.

'A sharp, visually-arresting theatrical experience, based on the sleeper-hit 70s film.

'Myrtle Gordon’s been a star of the stage for years. She’s loved by audiences, acclaimed by critics. Now she’s been cast in the role of a lifetime, and opening night is rapidly approaching – but something’s not quite right.

'The lines won’t stick, she can’t stay in character, reality and make-believe are starting to blur – and there’s a strange woman in her dressing room.

'Is she a ghost? A hallucination? Another Myrtle, who’s climbed out from the mirror?

'The cult classic 1977 film of what happens when a woman can’t play her role anymore, in a startling theatrical reimagining by Carissa Licciardello.'

Source: Belvoir St Theatre.

'Girl meets boy.
'Girl Hates boy.
'Girl f***s boy 44 times.
'The world collapses.

'Watch 5 of your favourite Belvoir clowns go down on their microphones and some random fruit in a theatrically dextrous response to humanity’s decision to hit the accelerator, turn off the headlights and surge into the dark wilds of the 21^st century.'

Source: Belvoir Theatre.

'A dry, dusty little Aussie town, somewhere in the back of beyond, with all the decency, diversity – and division – that you’d expect in a rural microcosm. But Boomkak is confronting some massive challenges now that the Big Developer has set his sights on the town, and this little community finds itself in a fight for survival. How can they possibly fight back?

'By putting on a panto, of course.

'From the creative minds behind Calamity Jane (a smash hit at Belvoir in 2018) comes a piece of utter joy – a love letter to theatre, to community, to the resilience of our Little Aussie Towns™ – lo-fi, big-hearted, and Belvoir to the back teeth. With new songs from Tony Award nominee Eddie Perfect, and a couple of Aussie rock classics, dance, and old-fashioned silliness, The Boomkak Panto promises to be a mad, sparkling jewel, a reward for getting through these dark and strange times.' (Production summary)

'After years of research, and a lot of help from the community, Alana Valentine’s much-anticipated story of a little chapel in a back street of the Cross premieres at Belvoir. The Wayside Chapel under the Reverend Ted Noffs set itself up for those who might not find a place elsewhere to welcome them, and over the years has become a home and haven in a sometimes brutal town.

'This play is about the quietly revolutionary act of marriage – sometimes in the face of fierce resistance from family, from society, from the church hierarchy. It’s the story of a space where those who didn’t quite fit in to the mainstream could have their walk down the aisle.

'Moving, inspiring, Valentine’s play is about all of us – and a portrait of this city at its raffish, recalcitrant best.' (Production summary)

'A new play about the front lines of normal life.

'Susie’s at the top of her game. She’s devoted the best years of her life to reporting from the dangerous frontlines all over the world.

'But even the most resilient foreign correspondents need to come home one day. What happened to Australia while she was away? And what happened to her?'

Source: Belvoir Street Theatre.

'A coastal town, somewhere in Australia. Skeleton population in winter, swollen with the holiday crowd in summer. This particular bunch have been coming to their beach houses for years. They’ve got the money to enjoy themselves, they always have. Why should it be any different this year? Why should it ever change?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Bernadette hasn’t been home to Geraldton for a while. Her siblings are mad as cut snakes, the oldies are worse – even a simple conversation ends up a cyclone of screaming. But Nan’s leaving the world, and this mixed-up family returns to the roost; a brother living a big lie, a daughter swimming in little lies, and a mum who can’t tell the truth to save herself. Are they cursed? Or can they change the way they see themselves, and how the world sees them?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Australia, on the cusp of a new century. Sybylla Melvyn has grown up beyond the black stump, but she is determined to get away and make her own spectacular mark on the world. But if that’s to happen, she must first surmount collapsing family fortunes, a world hardwired against headstrong women, and the insistent nagging of love.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Lily’s grandmother was a beauty queen back in Hong Kong. She doesn’t care that times have changed and that Lily lives in a new country and a new century. She sees that Lily’s caught between worlds, and wants her to enter the Chinese community beauty pageant, the highly competitive Miss Peony. She won’t take no for an answer.

'And to makes matters worse, she’s a ghost.'

Source: Belvoir Street Theatre.

'A mother, in a time of war. She loses members of her family, one after the other – but she never loses hope. A rich, sweeping new play from the team that made the acclaimed Counting and Cracking. The Jungle and the Sea leans on two great pillars of literature – Antigone and the Mahābhārata – to forge a new story about surviving loss and the possibility of reconciliation.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'What started as a lecture to a roomful of students became an essay, became a book, became a seismic wave. Virginia Woolf’s 1929 classic description of the need for new spaces and a complete redefinition of who owns our storymaking is by turns wise, amusing, incendiary and poetic. Rippling with passion, one of the finest pieces of writing in the last hundred years, with the distinct talents of Anita Hegh walking Woolf’s tightrope of thought and feeling.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Tasmania, now.

'Boyd’s got enough on his plate between keeping a young family together and his responsibilities to land and people.

'But something’s happening. Every year more and more folk are claiming to be Palawa too. Folk no-one’s heard of until now, who haven’t been ‘round before. Are they legit? Or are they ‘tick-a-box’? Who decides? And how?

'If Boyd’s going to take everyone forward, they’re all going to have to go back, old mob or new, into the island’s knotty past. And they might not like what they find there.'

Source: Belvoir Street Theatre.

'On the banks of the Georges River, Radha and her son Siddhartha release the ashes of Radha’s mother – their final connection to the past, to Sri Lanka and its struggles. Now they are free to embrace their lives in Australia. Then a phone call from Colombo brings the past spinning back to life, and we are plunged into an epic story of love and political strife, of home and exile, of parents and children

'Counting and Cracking is a big new play about Australia like none we’ve seen before. This is life on a large canvas, so we are leaving Belvoir St and building a Sri Lankan town hall inside Sydney Town Hall. Sixteen actors play four generations of a family, from Colombo to Pendle Hill, in a story about Australia as a land of refuge, about Sri Lanka’s efforts to remain united, about reconciliation within families, across countries, across generations.'

Source: Belvoir St Theatre.

'Meet Edna: She’s 14, chronically awkward, and everyone thinks she’s a serial liar. But none of this will matter when her REAL life starts. With Harry. There’s just one problem, Harry is in True Connection - the world’s biggest boyband.

'When True Connection announce a tour stop in Edna’s city, she realises that this is her one chance to meet Harry and convince him of their destiny. But just how far is she prepared to go in the name of love? Edna takes her obsession to unforeseen heights in this thrilling and hilarious musical comedy about first love, fan culture, and the danger of underestimating teenage girls.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Meet Barbara and her band the Camp Dogs. Barbara’s been trying to make it in Sydney but maybe this just isn’t her town. In all the relentless demands of city life, where’s the sense of belonging she craves? It’s time to take a break with her cousin René.

With Ursula Yovich as Barbara and Casey Donovan as her redoubtable cousin, Barbara and the Camp Dogs is a rock-gig musical about love and home.' (Production summary)

'The Price family appear to be living the Australian dream—a loving household in a solid brick house on a quarter acre block where the passing of time is measured by the seasonal changes in working class patriarch Bob’s beloved roses. The four kids have grown up and spread their wings, with only the youngest, Rosie, still at home. As the seasons turn, their story becomes darker and more difficult. But, with complexity comes richness, resolution and meaning.' (AusStage)

'To mark and celebrate 25 years of theatre at Belvoir, we commissioned a stunning new book full of essays, memories and vivid photographs. This is 25 Belvoir Street.

Including a collection of essays by Robert Cousins, Ralph Myers, Robert McFarlane, Rhoda Roberts, James Waites, Alan John, Rita Kalnejais, Benedict Andrews and Neil Armfield, 25 Belvoir Street traces the social and political background from which Belvoir emerged and it looks at the way the building itself has found a way into our imaginations.

From its first mercurial decade when it teetered on the edge of oblivion on more than one occasion, through to the appointment of Neil Armfield as Artistic Director, and beyond to a new generation of theatre makers headed by Ralph Myers, this book provides an extraordinary and intimate record of a company that has been described simply as the "heart and soul of Australian theatre."' Source: www.belvoir.com.au/belvoirbook (Sighted 06/06/2011).

'And God said: Thou shalt love thy neighbour. He obviously hadn't reckoned on Ana.

'Neighbourhood Watch is a glorious new comedy about hope, death and pets. It's a classic odd-couple story: opposites attract, and from each other they gain a new understanding. But as the domestic crises accumulate, Neighbourhood Watch takes on a sense of enormity in the midst of the ordinary that would make Patrick White proud.' (From the publisher's website.)